Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/571

 TITO CAROLINGS.] FRANCE 535 and dignities to his son without risk of loss. The title of duko or count is henceforth attached to one family; as tho royal and the imperial power become weaker, the great families grow in strength ; until a century of faineant Carolings comes at last to an end, and their place is taken by the representative of one of the great houses, the duke of France and count of Paris. Then tho new kingdom of France with its new capital will begin with Hugh Capet in 975. For the family of the counts of Paris had come to occupy the ground abandoned by the Carolings ; they were the champions of the Gallic people against the North men. Only twenty-seven years after the death of Charles the Great, in 841, Rouen had fallen into Norman hands, open ing the way for them up the rich Seine valley as far as to Paris. From that moment the city had no peace; and in 861 Charles the Bald invested a bravo adventurer, Robert the Strong, with tho county of Paris, and set him to resist the invaders. Bravely ho struggled against them, and in the end gave up his life in defence of his people. In so doing he laid tho foundations of tho first French monarchy: his two sons were, to all practical intents, local kings of France; his great-grandson was Hugh Capet. Very dif ferent was the career of Charles the Bald. His famous order to his assembled lords, &quot; Let each man defend him self in his fortress,&quot; with which high sanction for castle building and local independence he dismissed his feudal levies to shift for themselves, showed that the centre of power was completely gone. The king abandoned his people to any one who would defend them; their defen ders rose to greatness, and the Caroling house sank into supine nothingness. Yet he still struggled, though in vain, against the sons of Ludwig the German ; after an unsuccessful campaign in North Italy, death overtook him as he was recrossing the Mont Cenis pass (877). Louis his son succeeded him, the Louis II. of French historians, the &quot;Stammerer.&quot; He had been for ten years king of Aquitaine, and, when he succeeded to his father s throne, found himself little but the slave and puppet of the great nobles. He soon died (879), leaving a kingship weakened and divided. His two sons, Louis III. in the north and Carloman in the south, were set on their thrones by the nobles, headed by Count Hugh, &quot; first of abbots.&quot; These also soon died, Louis in 882, Carloman in 884 ; and the representatives of the Caroling family were reduced to two princes of the name of Charles, Charles tho Fat, the emperor, son of Ludwig the German, and Charles &quot;the Simple,&quot; &quot;the Fool,&quot; a child of five years, youngest son of the stammering king. To the emperor fell the nominal sovereignty over the chief part of the Caroling territories. He, however, was incapable, lazy, a most degenerate shoot of the great house of Pippin. In France he did almost nothing ; the Northmen scourged the land incessantly, and in 885-886 laid terrible siege to Paris. The citizens, led by their bishop Gozlin, by Hugh, &quot; first of abbots &quot; (for he was abbot of St Martin at Tours as well as of St Denis), and by Odo (or Eudes), count of Paris, made heroic and dauntless resistance. In vain did Hrolf the Northman press the town with active siege or dull blockade ; the death of Gozlin and Hugh could not shake the fortitude of the defenders ; Count Eudes repulsed attack after attack, and held his own. At last Charles the Fat appeared on Montmartre with a great host of Germans ; and the Parisians hoped to see vengeance taken on their pagan foes. Charles the Fat, however, had none of their heroism ; he contented himself with buying the Northmen off. As they retired, the citizens rushed out and inflicted one great blow on them, and the great siege was over. Charles withdrew into Germany, and in 887 was deposed and abandoned by all. He died the next year at Reichenau. On his death in 888 the nobles of France, irritated against their half-foreign Caroling lords, chose Eudes, the 888-912. stout defender of Paris, the elder son of Robert the Strong, The as their king ; he ruled over the land between the Meuse Capetian and the Loire, and was the forerunner of the Capetian lilie. line of princes, the first person who may be spoken of as a be S 1113 - French king. The Carolings still spoke German, and had small love for France ; the family of Robert the Strong was patriotic and vigorous, and had shown in the great siege that it might be trusted for defence. In the election of Eudes we see the victory of the feudal lords over the imperial or royal power ; we feel that the Frankish name and influence are dying out, and that another set of lords and defenders is rising up to cope with the Northmen, and to reduce the land into something like order. Eudes ruled from 888 to 893, striving manfully against the Northmen, whom he so far quelled as to induce them to cease from their devastations of France, and to turn their arms against the English shores. He tried in vain to conquer the southern part of France, and after a long struggle v/as fain to leave them in their independence. Then the southern lords held a great assembly with the Caroling party of the north at Rheims in 893, and elected Charles the Simple their king. He placed himself under the protection of Arnulf, king of Germany, who formally invested him with the kingdom of France, and sent soldiers to assert his claims. This was quite natural ; for in the eyes of the Carolings the head of the German branch was the head of the whole family; all other members of it were his vassals, them he protected, to him they swore allegiance. After a struggle of some years Eudes died, and Charles then became sole king of France. Robert, brother of Eudes, received the great title of duke of France ; and these two personages headed the two parties, the Germanic Carolings and the French-speaking nobles. Charles the Simple reigned undisturbed for many years : Charles perhaps he was not altogether so foolish as his name de- ^. 10 clares him. In his day the Northmen, hitherto mere de- Sim P le - predators, became permanent settlers in France. Every thing there was so weak and defenceless that the invaders had only to choose ; the miserable people, the old Celtic in habitants of Gaul, welcomed their settling ; it was a relief from the infinite woes under which the land was suffering. One band of Northmen established themselves on the Loire ; another, under Hrolf, the fierce leader of the attack on Paris, settled at Rouen (911) and subdued all tho country round, on both sides of the Seine. An orderty and strong government once more grew up in France, and Charles the Simple, advised by the churchmen, made terms with Hrolf, giving him his daughter Gisela to wife, and on due feudal tenure granting him the lands he had won by the sword (912). The stout pagan was baptized by the name of Robert; his followers, after their fashion, loyally did as he had done, and the history of Normandy began : Hrolf becomes Duke Robert, his people become French men. The duchy soon grew into a compact and orderly state, prosperoxis and vigorous; Norman towns and churches sprang up on all hands, French manners and speech soon ruled supreme, and in all the arts of peace, in building, commerce, letters, the Normans forthwith took the lead. The noble Scandinavian race, destined to influence so largo a portion of the world s history, herein made worthy mark on the soil and the institutions of France. Soon after this time the French lords, headed by Robert, duke of France, the &quot; king of the barons,&quot; second son of Robert the Strong, rose against their Caroling king, and shut him up in Laon, the last stronghold of his family ; thence he fled into Lorraine. On the death of Robert, the barons made Rodolf of Burgundy their king, and continued the strife ; and Charles, falling into the hands of Hubert of Vermandois, was held by him as a hostage till his death in